THUMBELINA (1994)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

The only reason I give Don Bluth's THUMBELINA a rating of "fair mythicity" is that the movie seems to adequately capture the essence of the Hans Christian Anderson original tale. In that story, the insect-sized maiden finds herself continuously pursued by miniscule animal-suitors until she finally enjoys romantic satisfaction with an equally tiny fairy prince.

To be sure, the Anderson story doesn't intro the prince until story's end. Bluth, credited with the movie's script, followed the lead of Disney's 1959 SLEEPING BEAUTY by having the lissome lass of the title (Jodi "Little Mermaid" Benson) encounter her Prince Charming in an early "meet-cute," rather than simply hooking up with her male counterpart at the climax. 

Other than that, Thumbelina's story follows most of the original story's beats faithfully. Thumbelina, though she gets on famously with all the animals on her adoptive mother's farm, spends most of her childhood yearning to meet people as tiny as she is. When she reaches marriageable age, she has a totally chaste encounter with the wing-backed Cornelius, prince of a tribe of fairies. (They have a vague association with the weather, which was a new but not very important new twist on the original story.) Cornelius wants Thumbelina to meet his parents, but alas! She's abducted by a family of toads, led by Mrs. Toad (played with full Spanish gusto by Charo). Mrs. Toad wants the eligible young miss to marry her repulsive son Grundel. With the help of a French-accented swallow named Giacomo, Thumbelina escapes the toads, but she's pursued by two other small suitors, a mole and a beetle (Gilbert Gottfried), before she's reunited with her true love.

The movie was not successful in its original release and I can't claim there's anything special here. The character designs are lively, but none of the characters stand out, though I liked the voice work by Gottfried and by Carol Channing (whose field mouse character sings the only half-decent song, "Marry the Mole.") While I'm tired of the many "girl boss" characters that infest current animation, I must admit that Bluth's Thumbelina is hard to invest in, given that she was modeled on all the early Disney princesses, who are overly passive. At least there's one moment when she kicks Grundel on the shin. There's a brief struggle between the nasty toad and Prince Cornelius, but not enough to make the film combative.